Niceville

it run some. A thing happens, about now. I want to see if I was right.”
    Kate hit PLAY and the video jerked into life again. Nick was still in the picture. On the sound track they could hear Beau’s voice.
    “Nick, honest, don’t touch it.”
    “I’m just going to—”
    And then a hissing sound, deep and resonant, loud enough to fill the room.
    Nick leaned into the screen, intent.
    A moment of time, and then the image of the farm flickered and disappeared, changing all at once into a section of rolling green lawn, a black iron fence, a red and white security van at the curb, a young black man in a uniform.
    “What
was
that?” Kate asked. “What happened? What was that hissing noise?”
    “Delia’s cat. She was under a furnace pipe. What happened was the picture
changed
. It was a field with people digging in it, a tree line—”
    “A sled piled with skulls—”
    “Yes. And then it changed into the street scene outside Delia’s house.”
    A silence.
    “What does it mean, Nick?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “It was a real place, wasn’t it?”
    “Looked real enough. Maybe a burial ground? The South is full of them.”
    “We could search the photo archives, see if we can find a match. The pines, the countryside, it looks like someplace in the Belfair Range.”
    “The Ruelles had a place south of Sallytown. Your dad mentioned it. That would put it right in the middle of the Belfair Range. That’s where you’d see a stand of old pines like that. Can you save this video?”
    “Yes,” she said, hitting SAVE AS .
    The video shut down.
    There was a flicker outside, and the streetlights blinked off.
    “Oh, great,” said Kate. “I guess we’re next.”
    “Kate. A power failure, okay?”
    “Go do something manly about it, then.”
    Nick got up, went to the living room window. Not a glimmer from outside, but the house lights were still on. Nick could see lights through the trees, which meant the power was still on in the other homes along the street. Kate was sitting on the floor, staring up at him, her face white.
    “Like I said. A rolling blackout.”
    “Then why are the house lights still on?”
    “The streetlights are on a different cable.”
    Nick picked up the phone, listened to the steady dial tone, dialed the number for Sylvia’s house, listened to it ring and ring. He set it down, looked back out at the street.
    All he could see was his own reflection in the window, a figure in the light, Kate on the floor beside him, staring out.
    “I’ll go check the breaker panel.”
    “In the horror movies, the first guy who gets killed is the guy who goes to the basement to check the breaker panel.”
    “This is not a horror movie.”
    “Then maybe it’s a ghost story.”
    “I think you need a drink.”
    “Yes. I do. So do you.”
    Nick went down the narrow hall to the kitchen, glancing at the conservatory at the back of the house. It was lit with a warm yellow glow, and their yard lights were still on, a soft warm pool on the back lawn, lighting up the linden trees at the bottom of the slope.
    He was pouring two glasses of Louis Jadot Beaujolais when he heard the front doorbell ring, turned around, started back up the hall. A figure was standing there. A woman in a black burka.
    He heard Kate walking into the front hall.
    “Don’t answer that,” Nick called out.
    The black figure hovered in the hallway, shifting, indistinct, but full of menace.
    Kate was at the door now. Through the tall stained-glass sidelights she saw, bathed in the amber glow of the porch light, a familiar figure in a trench coat and a scarf, rumpled, fatigue in every line. A familiar voice.
    “Kate. Honey, it’s Dad. You home?”
    Her heart stopped.
    “Nick, it’s Dad.”
    “Kate,” said Nick, “that’s not your dad.”
    Kate found herself moving towards the door, her hand reaching out for the brass knob as if it were detached from her body.
    Nick forced himself to
move
, ran straight at the black figure in the hall—passed right through it—a fleeting sensation of intense heat—like being too close to an IED exploding—a rush of white-hot rage, and the feeling of something
hungry
tearing at his skin—he fought free, ran down the hall. The front door was wide open.
    Something black and formless seemed to flow into the hallway, filling it up, billowing out towards Kate. Nick pulled Kate back and away. The shape paused, reformed, gathered, shuddered, and then seemed to explode out at them. A voice spoke